After the Sunrise - Dani and Santana
by eden000
Summary: A week after they watched the first sunrise together, Dani wants to bridge the gap between her and Santana. She's used to being confident around girls, but Santana is different...


Ever since the day that Dani and Santana watched the sunrise together, Santana never wanted to sleep. Dani's quick kiss had been the first _real _contact she had since breaking up with Brittany, and it was amazing. Dani left trails of goose bumps wherever she touched her, and then she would smile when Santana shivered.

Dani was amused by Santana's obvious crush on her, but it didn't mean that she didn't also feel the same way. She told herself that the quick kiss on the front stoop of her building was an impulsive decision, but she meant it when she said Santana deserved a Sapphic goddess. And Dani intended to be that, all the way.

In the week following the kiss, the two girls didn't see each other very often. They worked complimentary shifts at the diner, and were forced to sustain themselves on the quick glances they stole at the ends and beginnings of the day. But exactly a week after they watched the sunrise, Santana and Dani were finally booked for that same graveyard shift together.

It was slow going for the first couple of hours, so Santana decided to help the dishwashers in the kitchen. She went through the swinging double doors after asking Dani if it was alright, and began drying some of the spoons after they emerged from the industrial washer. It was repetitive work, and her mind began busying itself with thoughts of her next auditions – there was one for _The Secret Garden_, and she'd been working really hard on one of the songs.

"Gonna go take a smoke break," the regular dishwasher said before picking up his bag and pushing through the door.

_Perfect, _thought Santana, and she began to hum. She liked the songs from _The Secret Garden _because they were more classical than a lot of the stuff she'd sang in Glee club, but they still let her experiment with different runs. She had just started one, sliding up to a perfect C, when she felt her body being pulled backwards.

Santana stopped, startled, as she was being whirled around with the spoon still in hand. As soon as her head was turned back towards the door, she saw that Dani had pulled on one of the drawstrings of her apron, bridging the physical gap that separated them since their first kiss. A fire lit in Santana's stomach as she looked into Dani's playful eyes, and she gulped.

"No, don't stop San, I love hearing you sing," Dani said softly as she let go from the apron and grabbed the spoon.

_How am I supposed to sing? _was all Santana could think. That, and _she's so close to me. Her lips are so close to me._

Before she even knew what she was doing, Santana began singing again. She sang until the song was complete, looking out from the thick line of her eyelashes. When she finished, Santana blushed and started to worry that she didn't have anything to say.

Dani was looking at her with such intensity… she couldn't even help it. Here was this girl, this amazing girl, with a spectacular voice. She started to think about her own first months away from home, after her parents found her in a bra and panties with her girlfriend. There was always so much yelling at home, she had to make music to just drown it out… But no, she tried not to think about those times.

Before she had even decided to, Santana was kissing Dani. She'd seen something shift in those dark eyes, something sad had risen up in them, and all she knew was that she never wanted Dani to feel sadness again. Not if she could help it at least. The kiss was slower than their first. It started out with Santana's hand on the side of Dani's neck, and Dani scrunched her eyelids closed. She wanted to savor this moment so badly; she felt so lucky. As soon as Santana started to move her head away from the kiss, Dani moved her hands to the small of Santana's waist. They stopped for air, started kissing again, and finally pulled away when they heard the diner's door open.

"I should probably go out there in case that's a customer," Santana said, her voice a little raspy from the nerves.

"You stay here." She gestured to the spoons.

Dani thought of arguing. She thought of asking Santana if she was scared, and then thought better of it. She was usually so cool and collected, usually the one to worm her way into girls' hearts on her own terms, but she was slowly realizing that Santana had her wrapped around her little finger.

_Don't mess this up,_ she kept telling herself all night. When she looked up at the clock and saw that it was finally 7 a.m., the end of their shift, Dani hurried into the washroom to fix her hair. She combed her fingers through it, put on a touch of lip-gloss, and rubbed her lips together until they were a deep shade of pink.

"Ready to walk me home?" She asked Santana as they left the diner.

"I was thinking that _you _could walk _me _home, Dani," Santana said with a half-smile. She hadn't missed that Dani seemed pretty nervous around her too, and she was enjoying this flirtatious game they had.

"You did, did you?" Dani asked. "I think I could do that."

They set off together as the sky's colors cracked out onto the horizon. At first it was yellow, then pink and violet.

"It's so beautiful," Dani finally said.

"I don't know how you can even see it!" Santana laughed, "I'm just exhausted after that shift."

"Oh yeah? Was drying spoons and playing crossword puzzles exhausting for you, Santana?" Dani laughed too, and then her smile vanished. "Hey," she said with a seriousness that made Santana think the worst.

"What?"

Dani's mouth quivered as she tried to hold back a grin. "You said your apartment was on the other side of central park, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Let's race to the other side of the park. It's the absolute best way to wake up. Well, one of the best ways." She looked down at Santana's short skirt, let her eyes bounce to her chest for just the right amount of time, and then she met Santana's wide eyes and winked.

"Is that so?" Santana asked. "What does the winner get?"

"She gets… Whatever she wants for breakfast." With that, Dani ran across Fifth Avenue (which was quiet at this time of morning, but her spontaneous outburst still prompted quite a lot of honking from the cabbies lined up in front of the brownstone apartments).

"Hey!" Santana shouted, and ran right after her.

Dani jogged through Central Park almost every morning that she didn't have work, so she knew all the shortcuts. When Santana finally reached the other exit, Dani wasn't even sweating anymore.

"You snooze you lose," she said with a wink as Santana approached her.

"You must have cheated somehow! You must have gotten a ride from one of those crazy bicycle guys or something," she insisted.

"Ah! A sore loser," Dani teased.

Santana sighed overdramatically, but didn't argue. They left the park together, and Dani almost started walking the wrong way.

"This way," Santana said, and took Dani's hand.

"Who am I to argue?" She blushed, but didn't make any move to pull away even after they were stopped at the steps to Santana's apartment.

"Well, this is mine," she said sadly.

"Okay Santana," Dani said. "I hope I'll see you at work sometime soon. Maybe before next time you can brush up on your knowledge of central park!"

They both laughed, and Dani started walking away.

"'Bye," Santana said, surprised. She didn't want Dani to go. As the opened the outer door to the apartment, she could see Dani's reflection in the glass getting a little smaller with every second. Suddenly, she shut it.

"DANI!" She called out onto the street. The girl turned, smiling.

"Dani do you, um.. Do you want to have some coffee or something?"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

Five minutes later, Dani and Santana were tiptoeing their way inside Santana's tiny apartment. Santana forgot that the draft in the hallway could make the door slam shut sometimes, and sure enough it closed with a loud BANG.

"Shit," she said under her breath. "My roommates are probably sleeping."

"Do you live with Rachel?" Dani had barely finished the sentence when Rachel emerged from her room, wearing pink satin pyjamas and a sleep mask pulled under the bangs on her forehead.

"Think you could have been any louder, San—OH," she stopped when she saw Dani, hair slightly messy from the wind in central park, skirt crumpled after a long night shift, but with her hand unmistakably linked to Santana's.

"I'll just leave you two," she said with a grin after getting a banana. She almost giggled with happiness as she attempted to make eye contact with Santana before hurrying back inside her room and closing the door.

"Well that was awkward," Santana said, unsure if she should apologize.

"I didn't think it was. Why – are you hiding something?" Dani teased.

"Only that I don't really drink coffee at 8 in the morning after staying up all night," Santana admitted.

"Neither do I, but I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet."

"I know the feeling."

"I am pretty tired though," Dani admitted.

"Well, I mean, I have a double bed. You can borrow pyjamas if you'd like."

Dani smiled and followed Santana into the bedroom. Santana stole glances as the beautiful girl in her room slowly removed her work uniform, facing away. She bit her lip.

"Confession time… I don't really wear pyjamas," Dani said slowly. Her heart was beating so fast, she was sure Santana would be able to hear it.

Santana laughed nervously. "Neither do I."

They lay down together in Santana's bed in their bras and underwear. Dani's was black lace, and the left side over her ribs was partially concealing what looked like a large tattoo. They lay facing each other, and Santana slowly reached out to touch the tattoo.

"What's this?" She asked.

Dani explained – it was a dragon, to commemorate her grandmother who had passed away a few years before she moved away from home.

"You know," Dani said, "I think she would have really accepted me. She always told me that I was the most beautiful person she knew… not because of my voice, or because I did well in school, but because I was just myself." Despite trying to avoid it, a big tear slowly pooled in Dani's eye and rolled down her cheek. It was easy to talk about leaving home, but there were very few girls who she told about her grandmother. Mostly, when she got comments about her tattoo she would just shrug them off.

Santana took her hand off of its resting place on Dani's rips and dried the tear on her cheek. She bent forward to kiss it, an innocent action except for the amount of skin that was touching between them. Dani could feel the heat coming off of Santana as her soft, flat stomach rested against her own.

"Dani, I—" Dani interrupted her with her own lips, probing gently at first but then with desperation. She knotted her hands in Santana's hair, pulling her closer. As soon as she felt the other girl reciprocate it, as soon as she felt their desperation match, Dani rolled Santana onto her back. Their hands couldn't stop exploring each others' bodies, and each did everything they could not to be the one to escalate it, just in case the other wasn't ready. But finally, Dani hooked her right thumb underneath the delicate lace waistband of Santana's underwear. It was all she could do to pull away for a second to see if Santana was okay with it, but she wanted everything to be okay between them. Santana took that moment to reach behind Dani, unhooking the strap of what hid the rest of the dragon tattoo….

When they woke up in the morning, Santana's body was curled around Dani's.

"I want you," Dani whispered into Santana's soft hairline.

Santana opened her eyes and smiled. She couldn't believe everything that had happened. "Good morning, my Sapphic goddess" she sighed. Then she remembered about the race through central park the day before.

"What do you want for breakfast?" She asked happily.


End file.
